


In Silence

by waxjism



Series: Bury Me Deep/In Silence [2]
Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-03-07
Updated: 2001-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:11:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxjism/pseuds/waxjism





	In Silence

**prologue: the chemicals between us**

"It's been a week," Joey says before he gets into bed. He doesn't know why, but he just wants to at least bring it up. JC hasn't been talking much.

"I don't want to talk about it, Joe."

"J--"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, because JC shuts him up with a kiss. A kiss, a smile, a hand in his hair.

"JC," he sighs, because they've been down this road before. He can't help himself, though, he just can't, so he strokes JC's back, opens his mouth to another kiss, lets JC crawl into his lap and run bony fingers down his chest.

"I wish--" JC says, softly. He's resting his mouth against Joey's jaw, just a light pressure. "I wish..."

"What do you wish, baby?"

"I wish everything could be like--" Joey stops him this time, holds his head and kisses him like it's the last time, because, damn, it could be the last time.

Kisses and kisses again, and his hands still fitting on JC's body, even though it seems to be getting smaller and thinner every day. JC ate today, but Joey knows he was sick afterwards, and didn't say anything; neither of them said anything.

He still gets foolishly excited when JC sits in his lap and wiggles and licks his ear and whispers, "Joey, Joey, please," and pushes up his tee shirt. It's almost like it was before everything got so difficult. When it was the two of them and their fears and their sorrow and the big gap Justin had left. Chris and Lance went flying off into their own separate directions; JC reached for Joey. And Joey let himself be caught and trapped and he never even tried to escape.

JC's whimpering softly and breathing in his ear, and it's so close to good now, so close to being what he wants it to be. Easy. Just him and JC, close enough to touch for once.

He leans against the wall, tries very hard not to buck up against JC, against JC, who's squirming deliciously, moaning now, small, high-pitched sounds, his back hot and taut under Joey's hands, the small knobs of his spine standing out under the shirt, and--

The moans break into a cry, and it takes Joey two seconds too long to understand that he's been given the cease and desist, that this is as far as it goes tonight. JC breaks out of his grasp, as violently as a suddenly released metal spring, and then he's on the other side of the bed, panting harshly and glaring at Joey with accusing eyes.

"I'm sorry," Joey says. JC just narrows his eyes at him and says nothing. Then he gets off the bed and stomps out, out the door, down the hall, down the stairs, through the kitchen and down into the basement.

Three seconds later, the intro to Bye Bye Bye comes on.

Nothing has changed.

  


  


> "Hello."
> 
> "Lance, Chris again, look--"
> 
> click
> 
>   
> 

  


  


**gold dust boy**

Justin appears halfway through _Pain Song #43_. Chris' throat is raw with screaming 'you fucked me over! you fucked me over! you fucked! me! over!' for three minutes. His head is filled with twisting, worming images. Beav and Dave slipped him a pill before they went onstage - whateverthefuck it was, they were grinning like loons, anyway - and it's kicking in now.

And there's a moment in the song where Dave's guitar screeches itself out into silence. The drums rattle to a stop, and Chris is left to whisper, with his voice cracking, 'you, you, you, you broke me in two,' and in the deafening silence, he looks up and sees Justin standing still in the center of the crowd.

Chris blinks. Justin's still there. His eyes burn. Whispers "pain" into the mike, staring at Justin. The spotlights turn and wheel over the audience, and Justin is haloed in bright, scorching red. His dreads bleed crimson over his face, and he looks up at the stage, perfectly serene. Chris thinks he might be a hallucination.

The Larry kicks in with the drums again and the moment is broken, Chris pounds a fist into the air and screams, "PAIN!" When he looks again, the light has changed to cold blue and Justin is gone.

Gone in a sprinkle of fairy dust, Chris thinks, half-hysterically, and he almost giggles through the let-loose anger of the song.

  


Intermission, and he escapes backstage, tries to clear his head. Huh. The image of Justin is clawing at his brain, and it's annoying because he has no idea if he made it all up. Two weeks, and he's been giving Justin time, not going out looking for him, not calling the cops, not calling Justin's mother. He hasn't even talked to Joey.

He heads for the bathrooms. People are coming in the opposite direction, and it's like playing a fucked-up video game, trying to avoid hitting them as he ambles down the long, sloping corridor. He scrapes his knuckles on the graffitied walls, all that anger at the world, FUCK YOU! scrawled in giant spiderwebby black letters all over the men's room door.

He pushes it open and sees Justin again. Not otherworldly shiny-red now, but just plain old Justin, still wearing Joey's clothes (sleeves too short, pants too large, cinched together with a piece of string), hunched under a long, dirty trenchcoat. He'd look like a flasher, but his face is too calm for that.

Chris opens his mouth to say something, but the words aren't there, they found places to hide when he wasn't paying attention, and all that comes out now is a soft sigh. Justin's outward serenity crumbles - he's silently frantic and pulling at Chris, pulling Chris through the door and into the men's room. Inside is empty, which is weird, and Chris doesn't have time to say, it's not usually empty, dude, even though he thinks it. The words wouldn't form anyway, because Justin is there, his hair falling thick and heavy into Chris' face, and it's just like the thousand-and-one fantasies Chris has had time to entertain in these two weeks: Justin's dirty dreads, Justin's hands pulling at his clothes, Justin's knobbly legs pushing between his.

They kiss, and it's like fusing together, like some kind of freaky-ass alien organism building itself from two separate beings. Chris can't remember thinking that about a kiss before, and a separate, mildly coherent part of his brain wonders if it's Justin or just the drug. He can't decide, so he sucks on Justin's tongue, digs himself into Justin's mouth - can't let this go, can't let any of it go - pushes his hands up under the old, formless Superman shirt. Skims them over ribs, sharp under skin, the smoothness of that skin broken by the roughness of the jagged, twisting scars. Justin, Justin, Justin--

Justin is panting, waft of hot breath wet on his face, and Chris reaches up blindly to catch his mouth again because he can't not kiss now, can't not try to keep every available surface glued onto Justin. If he could, he'd send in a taproot and grow into him and they'd never split apart, they'd be Siamese twins forever and ever and never again.

The little chorus in his head, somewhere to the left, is telling him that he's too hopped up to even _think_ the word forever, that this forever ends in about two hours when he starts coming down, but how can that shit matter when Justin is grabbing him with strong fingers and almost lifting him, really lifting him up the wall, and he can hear the music thundering in the club above them, people yelling outside the door. The light in the cold-white bathroom flickers in time with the beat, stroboscopic flashes over Justin's pale face, over his wet mouth and wet eyes. Every flash highlights the red sacrilege of the scar, bright Technicolor nightmare.

The bathroom is a stinky cavern around them, the wall behind his back smeared with god-knows-what, but just now, this second of forever, Chris can't think of anywhere he'd rather be. Anywhere. Justin's face is so close to his that the features don't make sense; this close, his face is abstract art, and the scars blur away. He's Justin reduced, perfect, perfect, so perfect it hurts in a thin, sudden, paper-cut way. Right now.

"Justin," Chris says, and that's all he can say, the only word that makes sense right now. "Justin--"

Justin is strong, strong like a man who's spent thirty years working a jackhammer. He's reduced to the bare necessities: hard, wiry muscle roped over solid bone. He's pushing Chris into the wall, harder than Chris usually likes, but Chris takes it and whispers his name in a voice that skips all over the place and breaks into whimpers and moans.

And it's sex the way it only is when you're so starved for it you can't not do it, you can't be apart for long enough to actually get any clothes off, and Chris feels more than hears his shirt tear at the shoulder, and Justin's hands scrabbling over his skin, stroking, pushing, down, and pulling frantically at his tight pants. Chris is pushing the coat off Justin's shoulders, not getting much done, still staying in the kiss that's now mutated into some sort of half-bite, teeth on his lips, tongue, wet, sharp and soft, hot.

It's also sex that will never be anything more complicated than what it is right now, thrust, thrust, dry-humping against a wall, painful, needy kisses and hands everywhere, because it would just take too much co-ordination and brain manpower to even drop to your knees.

It's enough, though, enough and never enough, more than too much, and Chris finds a good spot on Justin's hip to aim at, and his zipper is _killing_ him, but he can't stop long enough to even get his fucking pants unzipped, he just can't, and then Justin's hand is there, pushing it down and thank the lord for that.

Hand on him now, pushing hard into his fly, and he's singing with joy that he went commando today in these tight, tight pants, even though it was murder before, it's not now when Justin's maimed hand is clutching him and he can just bite Justin's chapped, wet lips and buck into Justin's hand. He can't get his own hand in between them, too cramped, too close, bad angle, but Justin's wearing soft, loose pants and is probably not in actual pain, and he's got a frantic rhythm going against Chris' hip. Chris thinks his feet may not be touching the floor, and Justin must just be amazingly strong, because, sure, Chris has lost some weight these last few years, but he's not tiny in any way. He's caught between the rock of the wall and the hard place of Justin's body, and he can't breathe or speak or think or do anything but hump into Justin's rough, callused hand and pant into Justin's mouth and then scream reedily when he comes.

He bangs his head against the wall and sees stars, but he's not sure if they're leftover fireworks from the orgasm or real brain damage sparks. The world tilts and spirals downwards, and the floor is dirty, and he looks up and sees a cascade of brown hair cover him and he feels Justin's mouth one more time on his face and then there's nothing for about two seconds or two hours, and then someone kicks him in the side and says, "what the fuck, you pervert."

He clambers up, steadying himself on the urinal, notices that his dick is still hanging out. He's a mess, and the guy who kicked him is staring at him like he's a wino with puke on his chin. Justin is nowhere, nowhere at all. Through the muddy waters of afterglow, there's just a strange and yet familiar taste in Chris' mouth, a fleeting memory of skin and clothes and hair and teeth. His lips feel chafed and rubbed raw.

"Fuck off," he snarls at the asshole who's still giving him the evil eye. He splashes water on his face, not caring that his eyeliner runs, washes his hands and other bits perfunctorily, and goes back to finish the set.

  


  


> "Yes?"
> 
> "Lance, hey. It's Joey. I just wanted to--"
> 
> "Don't call me. I don't want you to call me."
> 
> "Lance, man--"
> 
> "Please."
> 
> "But--"
> 
> _click_
> 
>   
> 
> 
>   
> 

  


**family, one and a half**

JC builds moats between them. Their bed is large, a field of soft, white cotton, and JC has dug deep and there's a divider now, and Joey can't reach over it to touch him.

When JC struggles and screams out his nightmares, Joey can hold him and stroke his hair until he wakes up. But then he shrugs him off and turns over or gets up and goes downstairs.

Joey can trust him to accept touches in the daytime. Small ones, a hand on his shoulder, a brief hug before Joey leaves for work.

Joey works and feels like he should be at home. He's at home, and feels like he should be working more. JC worries about money for no apparent reason, drinks more gin than his system can handle and cries about how he's not helping, how he tries but can't get out the front door. Joey hugs him until he squirms away.

  


He sits at work and looks at the phone. He thinks about calling the cops and asking how long a person has to be missing before he can be declared dead.

JC would flip.

Finally, he calls Lance. Lance has his shit together. Lance is doing good. "I just wanted to talk," Joey tells him.

"Nice of you to call," Lance says, and Joey can't tell if he's being sarcastic or sincere. It's hard to tell with Lance these days. "Talk."

"I was just ... I was thinking it would be easier if we could move on. Get this behind us. Get on with our lives." He says more things. It seems like he's talking to himself rather than to Lance. Lance is quiet. Lance is a good listener; he knows when to shut up. When Joey has run out of breath and things to say, he is quiet, and Lance fills the quiet by saying,

"I did that already, Joey."

"What?"

"Moved on. I've moved on. What do you think I'm doing?"

"I think you're--" It's true, though. Lance has moved on. He's moved _away_, in fact. "You're not around anymore, Lance." Joey hopes it doesn't sound like he's complaining.

There's a breathy silence on the other end, and it's so long that Joey thinks they got disconnected somehow, that he's listening to the universe sigh down the line.

Then Lance sighs louder and says, "You do understand why, don't you?"

"No, I'm not-- we're your friends," but he sounds like he's protesting too much, even in his own ears.

"When did JC last go outside? When did you last talk to anyone besides him?"

"I talk to people--"

"--outside work."

"Chris. I talk to Chris. I'm not a hermit."

"No offence, man, but you are. Get out some. Talk to a shrink."

That stings, somehow. Lance can sound so goddamn smug when he knows he's right. "We have each other," he says archly. Lance doesn't have anyone. He's famously single and wild. He's got a lot of celebrity friends. Everybody knows how much support they are in a crisis.

"Joey--"

It's four-thirty. Close enough for government work. "I have to go," he mutters. He can always hope that JC hasn't tried to cook anything today. He feels sick, and he doesn't think he can handle the smell of scorched bamboo hearts. JC cooks when he tries to apologise for something. It's almost more painful than when JC hides in the basement for three days straight.

"Okay," Lance is saying. He sounds tinny and distant, as if he's shrinking or moving farther and farther away with every breath. "Take care of yourself, Joey. Give my love to JC."

"Yeah, sure," and he doesn't think he was able to hide the sarcasm there, because Lance just mutters a quick, "bye," and hangs up.

He has a picture of all of them on his desk. It's not a studio photo; it's just a snapshot someone took, maybe Justin's mom or Lance's mom or Steve. Someone. They all look pretty much like idiots, with big, goofy grins that contort their faces into half-alien masks. Joey hasn't thought about how weird a smile really looks before. Justin stands in the middle with various arms hugging him from all directions, and he's squinting with laughter, his face all big mouth and teeth. JC, leaning his head on his shoulder, looks like he's about to break into tiny, giggling pieces.

Jesus Christ. He turns the picture frame over, face down on the desk. It's just one of those days, and now he's about to start bawling right here in the office. Photos should be banned.

He escapes and drives home, and JC has cooked, but he was mildly successful today, and it's actually edible. Not a bamboo heart in sight, and JC even eats some of the stuff without prompting.

The next morning, Joey turns the photo back up, and laughs at the stupid faces they're making.

  


  


**pain song #43**

_we talk about him when he's not in the room:_

They found Chris when he stage-crashed their gig once. Beav was singing, trying to stretch his uninteresting voice into greatness, it was something simple, a cover, something like I Wanna Be Your Dog, but it had no kick. They had a sound, they knew, but not the edge they needed. And this weirdo, drunk and hopped up out of his head, hit the stage and screamed out the song in a voice that was high and clear like an insane woman's and killing angry with raw emotion. They kicked him off the stage after the song, and then looked him up later, after the fights died down in the club.

They'd already played three or four gigs before someone told them who he was. Who he used to be. Dave asked his sister, and they all stared incredulously at the front cover of an old issue of Bop, at the familiar face in unfamiliar, shiny-happy clothes.

Dave's sister, older by then and over her boyband phase, gave them her records, and they listened to Chris sing, his crystal-sharp voice soaring over the well-disciplined harmonies.

"Creepy," Beav said. They all agreed. For fuck's sake. A boyband.

"One of them got killed or something," Larry said. They pondered this, listened to the dorky songs and tried to remember which one it was.

"What the fuck is this song about?" Dave was asking when Chris walked in. "--oh, hey, dude - why didn't you tell us, man! This is--" but Chris had already marched straight into the room, hit STOP on the stereo, and the song cut off, mid-_'if you're in the mood and I'm not home--'_. Chris walked out again.

"Huh," Beav said.

  


Chris didn't mention the boyband thing ever, and the guys just let it slip. Chris had no image problem; he was as angry and dirty as they were, so why give him trouble?

Once, he brought a friend to a rehearsal, a skinny, nervously jittery guy who chain-smoked quietly and never met anyone's eyes. They recognised him, just barely, from the magazine covers. When he made an attempt to smile, it looked more like a dog baring its teeth, but when they talked about music, he was cool and professional and said things that made sense. He'd written a song, he told Chris in front of them all, and handed over a thin pile of sheet music. They shuddered at the thought, remembering the NSync CDs they listened to and his name in the credits. They thanked JC and drew a collective breath of relief when his big, Italian boyfriend came to pick him up.

The song was called _Pain Song #43_, and it was a grinding, repetitive outpouring of anger and hurt with barely three lines of lyrics and three chords. When Chris screamed and whispered it in his weird, high-pitched voice, it rocked. They put it on their demo. In the liner notes, Chris credited it to 'j.c'. They never saw JC again, but sometimes, every once in a while, Chris would show up with new music in the same vein, until one day he said, "that's it, that's all there'll be." He looked closed-up and slit-eyed when he said it, and they were wary to ask.

  


  


**sixty seconds forever**

It all happened so fast. That's the standard beginning of any eyewitness account. He's heard it a lot of times on TV. It all happened so fast.

  


JC's still in the bathroom, puking his guts up. The cops couldn't get the first word out of him before he had to run back there. Chris tries to think back to last night - how much did JC drink? Not that much, he thinks. Not _that_ much. Maybe he'd had something else.

Joey's also missing. He's with JC. Probably rubbing his back and wiping his forehead like a goddamn high school prom date.

Lance sits next to Chris. He's so pale he seems to disappear into the off-white wall. His eyes are distant and unblinking. He's either in shock or so hung over he's not even aware of where he is. Chris can't tell. He's not sure he cares right now. Last night, Justin wrapped drunken, heavy arms around him and nuzzled his throat and fell asleep on top of him like a big, awkward teddy bear that smelled of screwdrivers and smoke, and Chris remembers thinking, _this is a good beginning_.

  


"In what room was Mr. Timberlake sleeping? Upstairs?" The detective scribbles a constant commentary in his little notebook. His head is bowed over it, and Chris can see the beginning of a bald patch crown the top of his scalp. The guy's combed lank brown hair over it and it's starting to hurt Chris' eyes.

"He was in his own room. Um. The big one at the end of the hall."

"Do you know if anyone else was there with him?" Quick glance up. Bet he already knows.

"I was there."

"You were ... there? You were sleeping together?"

"Sleeping, yes." It's true. They'd been sleeping. It was supposed to be the beginning.

"Okay." More scribbling. Chris closes his eyes and leans back against the wall. The headache is hammering in his head. "Do you remember anything unusual? Did you wake up during the night? Did Mr. Timberlake?"

"I don't-- no. I was blitzed. He was, too, but I have no idea. He could have been singing showtunes in my ear all night for all I know."

"So you didn't wake up until..." and he has to flip through pages and pages of sprawling, rune-like handwriting to find the right note, "... ten-thirty, am?"

"No. Yes. Uh, that's when I woke up."

"And went downstairs? Did you notice that Mr. Timberlake was missing?"

"I thought he was already awake. I went looking for him. And a painkiller."

"And that's when you saw the handprint."

"Yes."

  


Endless interviews with the good detectives. After that, Johnny tells them with forced calm, it's time to give a press statement, and for God's sake, JC, don't puke on the reporters.

JC turns bleary, swollen eyes on him and doesn't even look put out by the sharpness of the words. Joey hovers next to him, a glowering, bed-haired guardian angel. Chris hopes they comfort each other or whatever. He doesn't feel up to comforting anyone. He wants this part to be over with so he can get drunk again. Drinking to drown his sorrows is maybe not a good idea, but it's the best one he can think of right now. He thinks he deserves to get wasted after the last few days. Hell, he deserves to get a shot of fucking morphine and drift away into an opiate haze.

"So, who's up for it?" Johnny's saying. He's starting to look a little rough around the edges, too. "It would be good if we could present a united front. Mrs. Harless will be giving her own statement, as you've probably heard."

Chris entertains himself with picturing Johnny dead. Chopped into pieces. Small ones. Slowly. Then he feels like a shithead about it. Not like Johnny did this.

For the first time, he thinks: what if he's dead?

  


Ransom note. The kidnappers - officially kidnappers now rather than, say, _murderers_ \- send it to Justin's house. The cops pick it up.

It's a plain, white paper. Incredibly, the text is pieced together from letters meticulously clipped out of different newspapers. Someone's been watching too many thrillers, Chris thinks. **AwaIt fURthER inSTRUcTiONS**, it says. For some reason, the note strikes him as hilarious. He chews viciously on the inside of his lip to stop the wild, dark laughter from bubbling up. It boils dangerously inside him all day, like a pack of howling dogs throwing themselves at a sturdy gate.

Mrs. Harless makes her statement. She pleads with the kidnappers. She shows pictures of Justin grinning sunnily into the camera. Family pictures. Chris isn't in them. "Please give me back my son," she says and large tears roll down her cheeks. Chris looks around for something to punch.

  


There are a thousand candles on the lawn in front of Justin's house. The fans gather, weep and play the records on their little boomboxes with NSync stickers glued to every available surface. When somebody even remotely associated to the band shows up, the crying starts again, louder, but the voices seem muted and broken. Chris looks at their blotchy-red, tear-stained faces and thinks this vigil is more creepy than 'supportive'. He thanks them anyway and hides his dry, itchy eyes behind dark glasses.

  


Lance tells him to get therapy. "I'm seeing a therapist," he says. "It helps." Chris tells him to go fuck himself, even though he knows that Lance is completely right. Lance stares at him with gentle contempt and throws out his arms. "I don't know what it is with you," he says. "You and JC - you're both acting like--" and he breaks off and swallows whatever he's thinking, and walks out. When the cops call to say that there still is no match for the handprint, and no further contact from the kidnappers, Chris punches a hole through the drywall in his room.

  


"Will NSync continue the tour?"

"Everything is on hold until Justin returns."

  


"It's been two months since Justin Timberlake was abducted from his home in Orlando. A spokesperson for the group confirms that the tour and any promotional dates have been cancelled until further notice.

"The investigation continues, but a source close to the--"

_click_

  


"Orlando PD sources confirm that the partially decomposed body of a young man found late last week outside Winter Park is not, as earlier speculated, kidnapped pop star Justin Timberlake. The discovered body, which remains unidentified, was a close enough match for Timberlake to warrant a special investigation, but comparison of dental records finally ruled it out. The search for Timberlake, who has been missing since June 6th, is still in progress. There has been no further communication from the alleged kidna--"

  


  


>   
>  "Mrs. Harless? This is Lance Bass--"
> 
> "Oh, Lance."
> 
> "Hey."
> 
> "It's been ... ages."
> 
> "Yes. Yes it has, Mrs. Harless. How, um, how are you? How are the boys?"
> 
> "They're good. We're ... holding up. You're busy with your business, I suppose?"
> 
> "Yeah, I am. ... Uh..."
> 
> "Yes..."
> 
> "Ma'am, thing is, I'm calling because, well, I don't know if you've heard anything, but. Have Chris or Joey talked to you? 'Cause they keep calling me, and--"
> 
> "No? About--"
> 
> "About Justin, ma'am."
> 
> "... what?"
> 
> "About seeing Justin ali--"
> 
> "What? What? Lance, what are you _saying_?"
> 
> "Mrs. Harless--"
> 
> "Oh, god. Oh god."
> 
> "Ma'am--"
> 
> "I have to-- I... It was... Goodbye."
> 
> _click_

  


  


**fall in, sink or swim**

A car screeches to a halt. JC watches from behind the kitchen curtain. The house is quiet around him. He doesn't listen to music when he's alone.

He sees Lynn Harless get out of the car and practically run up the walk. He hasn't seen her since ... well, he can't remember exactly. She just vanished into the world outside, along with Lance and JC's family and most of his friends. Logically, he supposes he was the one who disappeared, but then again, it's not like they don't know where he is, is it?

She drops her keys on the path and just leaves them. Her steps are short and hectic. Her hands clutch a white leather purse like a lifesaver.

Knock on the door. He doesn't usually open the door when Joey's not home. He keeps the house dark and quiet; no one has reason to think anyone's home. Mrs. Harless probably knows he's here, though, and she's _banging_ on the door, banging on it and shouting. He doesn't want to open. She seems to be pitching some kind of hysterical fit, and he's not sure he's up to dealing with that now. Also, it is very likely to have something to do with ... with _him_, and that's just not - that's not for today. Later, maybe. One day. But not today.

She doesn't stop, though; she just keeps on banging and yelling. It's getting uncomfortable to watch and listen to, and he thinks about just going downstairs and turning up the music.

Just as he has decided to turn away and just try to forget about her and her son, she gives up. She's crying, he sees, and he feels bad. Really, he does. She turns and wobbles back down the path. She's wearing very high heels in a colour that doesn't match her skirt. Her hair is a crow's nest of overbleached tops and dark roots. The years haven't been kind to her, either.

Then she suddenly crumbles on the walk, sinks to her knees right there on the gravel, and he doesn't know just what he's doing, but he has to do _something_, and it's like someone else's hands that push the door open, the front door, and he runs right through it like the world is a welcoming and happy place.

The sky doesn't fall, but he doesn't have time to be relieved. "Mrs. Harless?" he says, and his voice sounds very different out here in all this air. "Ma'am--"

She sobs and tries to speak, but he can't make sense of what she's saying. When he crouches by her side, she clutches at his shirt, shuddering with the effort of crying. He holds her, there really is nothing else to do, buries his face in her shoulder because he can't look up or to the sides or anywhere, and if he holds her close, he can pretend they're somewhere else.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay..." he chants softly, and somehow it seems to calm her; the sobs are less hysterical. He feels calmer, too, holding her tight and - he realises - crying into her angora sweater.

Getting inside, getting both her and himself inside, is a challenge. He can't look anywhere but at his own shoes. When he can't hide his face from the world anymore, it seems to creep closer and threaten him with its _reality_. She's not much help, she totters and sways, and he has to hold on to her just to keep her upright.

But they make it, and as soon as he's inside, he feels the calm of the place, of _his_ place in the world, settle in his bones again. He wipes his face surreptitiously and says, stupidly, "are you okay, Mrs. Harless?"

She doesn't seem to hear his question, just looks at him, stares at him with a peculiar intent. She's still crying, but it seems more like she's forgotten to turn it off than anything else. He digs through his pockets and finds a couple of clean paper tissues. She wipes her eyes and nose, digs through her purse and whips out a compact mirror. Checks herself and lets out a short, hysterical giggle. "Oh, my. Look at me - I was so-- oh, Lord." She looks at him again, closely. "You're so thin, JC, you look like you might just up and disap--" and her voice breaks on the word, and he has to hold her again.

"I'm sorry, I'm such a wreck," she whispers once she's got the tears subdued again. "But you look so-- and you're living ... Is Justin here?" the last sentence comes out in a breathless whisper, and JC feels cold, even though it's probably at least 80 degrees inside.

"J-justin?" he says. He still can't say his name without stuttering. It's like a curse. Justin is god knows where, with that hideous scar and his ancient eyes, and JC still feels like he's dead and trying to rise from a shallow grave somewhere.

"Lance called me--" she blows her nose and straightens. "Lance said-- he said you, that Joey and Chris had ... had seen--"

Was Justin, the new Justin they'd seen that night two weeks ago, real at all? Justin would have - the Justin JC remembers, at least - would have called his mother, first thing. Had any of it happened?

"I don't--" he starts, but then he remembers the fight, Justin's hands raised over his face, and the missing finger. That missing finger. JC doesn't think he'd be able to hallucinate that. And Justin's worn tee shirt and jeans and boxers are still stashed in the bottom of Joey's clothes drawer. JC does the cleaning, and saw them there again yesterday when he was putting away a pile of ironed and folded tee shirts. The jeans are missing the top button, and the boxers have Daffy Duck on them. He doesn't think he'd be able to hallucinate that, either. He sighs and wishes for a cigarette. He's still holding Mrs. Harless in a loose hug, though, and his pack is in the kitchen. It will have to wait. "He was here," he says, finally.

"He--"

"He's alive, Mrs. Harless."

"But--"

"I don't know why he didn't..."

"He didn't call his own mother!"

"I think he's--" he takes a deep breath. He can't believe he's about to defend Justin when he does think that he should have called his mother, that it was almost inexcusable not to. But he remembers the way the world pressed down on his head there on the outside, and thinks that Justin probably has his reasons. Logic is working today, and his mind stops reeling with shock. He can continue. "He seemed a little, um, tired, Mrs. Harless," he says as calmly as he can. It's pretty damn calm, he thinks, under the circumstances.

"How was he?" She's trying to hide her fragile hope, but he can see that it's already winning, that she's starting to believe in it again.

"He was ... he was healthy, I think. He had some. Um. Some, uh, scars - but he was fine, otherwise. Afraid and ... tired. But okay."

"Why didn't he _call_ me?"

That's not a question JC can answer. So he says, "would you like some coffee?" and doesn't wait for her to answer before he shepherds her into the kitchen.

  


When Joey pulls into the drive, he sees Lynn Harless' Explorer parked haphazardly half in front of the garage door. He picks up the abandoned keychain on his way up the walk.

In the living room, JC and Mrs. Harless are sitting together on the sofa, heads bowed over an open photo album.

"Hi," Joey says. They look up. "I found your keys--"

"Joey! Sweetie!" she exclaims immediately. Her face shines despite the tears. JC has an arm around her.

"Hello, Mrs. Harless," he says. She's trying to speak, but she keeps bursting into tears. They don't seem like hysterical tears, though, because her smile stays bright. JC hands her a Kleenex. There's a snowdrift of them on the coffee table, next to empty coffee cups and a plate of cookies.

"We were looking at old pictures," she says when she can speak again. "It's been so long since I saw these."

"It's from the last tour," JC says.

"I thought--" Joey starts.

"I saw where you put them," JC says. His eyes flicker a little nervously, as if he's afraid Joey'll be upset.

"Oh. Oh. So, you've been ... talking?"

"Yes, yes, JC has been such a gentleman, listening to me cry my eyes out all afternoon," Mrs. Harless says brightly.

"Well, that's ... good," Joey says. He has a headache. "Good. Um. Good afternoon, Mrs. Harless. I'll just ... I have to go make dinner. Will you be staying?"

"No, goodness. I have to get back. The boys will be wondering where their mother disappeared to!" She gets up a little unsteadily.

"Do you want me to drive you home?" Joey offers hesitantly. Her cheer seems brittle. "I can take a cab back, no problem."

She waves a hand at him; grins. "No, no, thank you but I'll manage. Oh, JC, thank you for everything." She catches JC in a lofty hug, and holds him there. He pats her back gently, and Joey notices that he doesn't seem uncomfortable.

  


"Lance called her," JC says later, when the fettuccine is boiling. He's chopping vegetables with unusual gusto. "Justin hadn't. He hadn't told her he was back."

"You saw him," Joey says. The headache isn't budging, despite the Tylenol. The air feels thunder-heavy and electric. The weather may be breaking. "He has a lot of shit to work out."

"You've been talking to Chris again." It's an accusation, and Joey sits heavily. The sauce will have to handle itself.

"Not lately." It may have come out too sharp, because JC falls silent and his back is tight and disapproving. Joey wonders, not for the first time, what he's doing here. I love him, he thinks. I love him. Right.

"Fuck," JC says suddenly. He holds up his hand. "I cut myself."

"Let me see--" The cut runs from the pad of the thumb over the knuckle. JC pulls his hand back and sucks on the thumb.

"It's just a lousy flesh wound, dad." He grins, sun coming out of the clouds, and Joey can't stop himself from pulling him into a hug. "Hey--"

"You're fucking nuts, you know that?" he mutters. JC's arms come around him. Well, blood comes off in the wash, doesn't it? Or he can buy a new shirt.

"I know," JC whispers back.

  


  


**roach motel**

The kid woke up and started screaming sometime after nightfall. They'd worried about him at first, because he took so long to wake up. Maybe they'd hit him too hard and broken his brain or something. There was now a strict prohibition on bashing in his stupid skull, even if he was howling like a fucking banshee by now.

"Jesus god, he can scream," Art muttered.

"I guess they train them," Salk said, shrugging and opening a new can of beer. "Singers, you know. They know how to breathe."

They both listened for awhile. Inventive use of bad language. Extra points for use of 'felcher' and 'dripping donkey dicks'. Minus points for the bits where he broke down and called for his mommy.

"How can he yell like that after the way you popped him in the head? I mean, he must have one mother of a headache."

"Don't know. I do know that we'll have to do something about that. If he keeps it up any longer, I'll be getting the sledgehammer."

"And that would be bad."

"We wouldn't get paid."

"Gordie would come after us with his own sledgehammer."

"I'll get the duct tape."

  


They did tape his trap shut, but they had to take the tape off every time they fed him, and after a couple of days, his face was raw and bleeding in a couple of places. They left it off and told him to shut up or else. He tried to scream a couple of times, but his voice seemed to have worn out. He sounded like a tin whistle with a hole in it.

"They won't want him back now, stupid," Art said and hit Salk over the head with last week's TV Guide. "He can't sing."

"He's still pretty, though."

  


Next up was the finger. Gordie called and said he wanted it pronto, just one and make goddamn sure he doesn't get blood poisoning. Or else, yadda yadda. So Art brought a blowtorch down with him. The kid was sitting in his corner, quiet now, wrapped in the dirty blanket. He still had it in him to slit his eyes like a pissed-off housecat and spit in their direction. Cocky little bastard.

"Here, kitty kitty kitty," Salk chanted merrily and twirled his sap daintily. He'd gotten pretty good at that.

"Shut up and help me out," Art said. He had a pair of pruning shears, a brand new pair they'd picked up at the local S-mart just the day before. No rust or dirt or anything. He held it in the flame until it was bright hot.

There was still sound in the kid. Ear-piercing sound. He screamed until he was blue in the face, until his eyes turned upwards under his lids. Then he shut up, and they thought they could get down to business, but when they grabbed him, he suddenly exploded and managed to catch Art on the cheek with a broken, jagged fingernail.

"FUCK!" Art yelled, and things deteriorated from there. Art had never been very good at controlling his temper. Salk had never been very good at fighting temptation. They held the kid down and cut him, and when he struggled, they cut him some more. Then they went upstairs with the bloody shears and the finger and the blowtorch, and listened to him cry.

  


The next morning, they went downstairs and saw what they'd done, and then the regrets did come.

"Shit," Art said.

"Yeah, shit," Salk agreed. "We gotta call Dr. Moose."

"He's probably drunk."

"Yeah, but. Dunno. Maybe he can fix it. Maybe it's not as deep as it looks."

  


Dr. Moose tried his best, but the kid just wasn't all that pretty to look at anymore. They sent off the finger to keep Gordie off their tail, but there really wasn't that much to do about things.

"He's broken," Art said. The kid hadn't screamed or spoken since that night. He just lay motionless on the floor, barely even breathing. He didn't want to eat, so they force-fed him.

"Yup. I guess they don't make them to last anymore."

"We're fucked."

"Yup."

"We need to clear out."

"Yup."

"Should we--?" Art waved a hand in the direction of the ragged heap of blanket and boy.

"Dunno. Kinda like a sick dog, isn't he?"

"Yeah, only we can't take him to the vet."

Then the kid did stir, lifted his head weakly and stared at them. The eye that wasn't fucked up and swollen shut was wide and dark. They stared back for a while.

"Fuckin' Bambi," Art said.

"He's got nice hair," Salk said. His brain was usually going down three or four unrelated tracks at any given time.

"Shut up about his fucking hair."

"I always wanted curly hair."

"You can take his."

"Fuck off."

  


They thought they were being practical. They untied him and dragged him onto the big sheet of plastic they'd laid out. He was heavy and limp and fell bonelessly when they let him go.

"It's just like slaughtering a pig," Art said reassuringly. "A sick pig."

Salk held the big knife gingerly. Gordie hadn't given them a gun, even when they asked. "What if he tries to, like, escape?" Art had tried. "All the better that you assholes don't have a gun then," Gordie had said.

"Just like a pig?" Salk said now. He hadn't killed anyone before. Not even a pig, actually.

Art never got to do any more reassuring, because just then there was a quick rustle, and Salk yelled, "Wha--" and fell heavily. Art jumped back and saw that the kid had stopped just lying around and was busy wrestling the knife from Salk. He was winning, too. He was winning, he had the knife, and he didn't seem to be weak at all, or sick, or anything like a pig. Art remembered some National Geographic special about the Masa-whatthefuckever tribe. They'd been naked and fought big, dangerous animals.

The kid had the knife, and he said something, something Art couldn't hear because the kid's voice was just a hollow whisper, but it was probably some kind of snappy kiss-off line like they had in the movies. He almost wished he could have heard it, because next, the knife was buried to the hilt in Salk's chest, and Art would have wanted to know what the last thing his buddy heard was.

Then he howled and jumped the kid, and it was like fighting a bag of giant cobras, because there was muscle left in that body, and something fierce and desperate that Art hadn't thought was in there. There were animals who fought when they were cornered, not all animals, but some, and this kid, who had looked soft and pretty and helpless, who had sobbed in between screaming for his mommy, was one of them.

He felt something break in his chest, something important, probably, because it was a lot like getting flattened by a truck, he couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe at all, and he threw out his arms with the last of his strength - guess I'm one of them, too, he thought - and the kid fell hard against the wall. The effort made the world go black.

  


When Gordie and friends arrived two days later to see what the fuck was going on, they found two bodies in the basement and not a sign of Justin Timberlake, who was what they were interested in.

"Goddamn," Gordie said and kicked the stiff corpse of - Art or Salk, whatever. Dead Loser #1.

"He climbed out, Gordie," one of the friends said.

"Through there?" The one small window in the room was broken. There was blood on the scattered shards of glass.

"The blood's dry. Day and a half at least."

"Goddamn," Gordie said again.

"There's a lot of it. He probably cut himself to shreds."

"Could be dead already."

"What if he isn't?"

"Let's clean up here and get going. We'll find him."

They never did.

  


  


**fold**

Since the night in the club, Chris has been seeing Justin in every crowd he passes. He's seen him hunched over a hot dog outside a strip mall. He's seen him lean against a wall and light a cigarette, the only white face in a group of scowling young men. He's seen him sleeping on a bench by the side of the street.

All fleeting glimpses through his car window, and when he desperately turns back to look, there's nothing to see.

It wasn't this bad when he didn't know if Justin was alive or dead. He hadn't been seeing his face in oncoming traffic then.

He leaves work in the pale light of early dawn, and sees Justin in a gaggle of homeless people in an alley. He says his name, but when the tall boy with the long dreads turns around, his face is smooth and unmarred, and he's just another skinny junkie with old eyes and a sallow complexion.

Chris goes home, and his heart skips a beat when he sees someone waiting for him on the porch.

"Good morning," Lance says. Disappointment feels like an old friend; Lance has been absent for so long that he doesn't.

"Lance," he says. His eyes feel gritty and strained, and there's still a distinct ringing in his ears. Lance is wearing a suit. It's six-thirty in the morning.

"I wanted to talk to you," Lance says. He's meeting Chris' eyes with firm earnestness. Chris recognises Lance's board meeting face. He used to watch Lance practice it in front of the mirror in their hotel rooms.

"Yeah? What about?" He opens the door and lets Lance in. The hall is starting to look a little skanky. The band rehearses here a lot, and the guys have a tendency to leave their empty beer bottles in long rows along the wall, and then the dogs turn them over when they play.

Lance sniffs but refrains from comments. Thank god for small favours.

"I, uh, I talked to Lynn--"

"What?"

"I called her and--" but Chris doesn't want to hear it, doesn't want to hear Lance's reasonable explanations.

"If Justin isn't talking to mom, he's got good reasons for it, you moron," he snarls. He'd like to call Lance something worse, but for old times' sake, he tries to keep it civil. He thinks about Justin's nervous hands and down-turned eyes. He thinks about how Justin didn't say a word that night in the club.

"Hey, don't get all--"

"What do you want? You keep hanging up on me, you don't answer my messages, and now all of a sud--"

"Lynn talked to JC. I just thought you should know." Lance slumps against the wall. He looks tired under the crisply professional demeanour. "I guess... I guess they talked about Justin. I think--"

"You wanna talk about Justin? Fine. Let's talk about Justin."

"Chris..."

Chris plows on, regardless. His eyes sting like he's been staring into the sun. "Justin's in town, yeah, probably been for a while, but he isn't really the same, you know, he's been through some shit you don't even wanna think about, living on the streets for all I know, he might be sleeping in a fucking dumpster right now--"

"Chris..."

"I have no idea where he goes or what he wants, but--"

"Chris--" and it's all too much by now, the headache and the long night and the way his eyes just won't stop burning, and he just wants to sit down and bawl his eyes out like a little kid. "Hey," Lance says, and for once, it's not a businesslike voice, or a coldly reasonable voice, or a falsely cheerful voice, but Lance's old voice, calm and soothing. The voice he would use to say things like, "I love you guys, I do," when he was tired and happy after a good show.

"Fuck," Chris says, slowly, and pulls a hand over his eyes. It comes away bruised with eye make up. Uh-oh, racoon time. He must look a lot like an aging drag queen by now. Make up is a bitch. Maybe he should think about changing genre again. Join a country band or something. Lance could manage him.

"Look," Lance says, and his hand is on Chris' shoulder, just Lance's hand, like old times. "I figured I've been a little ... distant or something, with you guys, but I just - you weren't trying..."

"Trying what?"

"I thought you were messing with me when you called. What with everything - before, it was like, like you didn't even want to have a life at all--"

"I have a life, Lance, I have three jobs," Chris says quickly. It passes for a life, at least.

"Yeah, you have three jobs so you can avoid really living," Lance says, and he even adds a little sage nod to accompany that tidbit, and Chris snorts and says,

"What, your shrink tell you that?"

Lance straightens a little, tries to look reproachful. "Actually, yes."

"Don't quote people at me, man," Chris says and claps Lance on the back. "You wanna beer?"

"No, um, I was on my way to work--"

"Right."

"Um."

"Why are you really here? You didn't come to apologise or anything?"

"Apologise for what?" and because Lance looks honestly puzzled, Chris lets it drop.

"Right."

"Yeah. I just wanted to-- Look. Tell Justin to call his mother."

"I don't know where Justin is, Lance."

"But-- Okay." He shrugs, a graceful, well-rehearsed movement of shoulders in the well-tailored suit. Lance looks very grown up these days. He doesn't look like he ever sang in a boyband. He looks like he was born with a suit on his back and a briefcase in his hand. But then, the only ones who still look a little like the teen idols they once were are JC and Joey, a couple of bugs trapped in amber. Justin's house is like a time capsule.

"Yeah, okay." He doesn't know what he wants from Lance, now that he has him here, potentially listening. He's been so angry with him, so pissed that he wouldn't listen, but now he can't think of a single thing to say.

"I should be going," Lance says quietly. Liar, liar, Chris thinks, and feels bad about it. Lance probably should go. What's there to say? Justin's been dead in Lance's book for a long time. Just because he suddenly turns out to be less dead doesn't mean Lance will change back to whoever he was before. Doesn't mean he and Chris will have any more in common all of a sudden.

But that's wrong, he thinks, angrily. They used to be friends. They used to be able to not have anything in common and still hang out and just ... be. So he reaches out and touches Lance's tailored sleeve. "Look. You could--" and he remembers the state of his kitchen and changes his mind, "--we could go get a cup of coffee or something. There's that diner..."

"Okay," Lance says.

  


It's barely seven in the morning, and the diner is quiet and almost empty. Chris catches a glimpse of them in the mirror on the opposite wall, and has to chuckle. Lance shoots him a glance, and Chris nods at their image: Lance, who looks more like a Memphis lawyer than a manager; Chris with his blue hair showing black roots and the row of hoops in his eyebrow.

"Freaks," he says, and Lance laughs with him.

They get coffee, just plain coffee, and sit without speaking. It's not very good coffee, and Lance doesn't touch his. Chris is starting to feel like caffeine is a good idea, so he drinks and makes faces around it.

After a while, Lance starts talking about his job to break the silence. They swap gossip. Laugh. It's almost like it used to be, except Lance sounds like a lawyer and Chris has trouble keeping himself from swearing too much, and they're not the same people they were.

Finally they run out of things to say. When they're as close to a comfortable silence as they'll come, Chris says, "JC misses you, I guess," and Lance blanches and shakes his head quickly and says, also quickly,

"No. Um. No, no, I can't--" and he looks down at his cup and tilts it and stares at the coffee until Chris thinks he'll go nuts from the silence.

"I just-- you don't have to go there. I mean, I know he's kinda fucked up. So. I just thought I'd say."

"I know," and they sit quietly for a while longer, not entirely uncomfortable, oddly enough. Chris thinks, for a mad ten seconds, that now might be a good time to bring up Justin again, but he stops himself in time.

Lance leaves to go to work, and Chris says, "Yeah, we'll keep in touch." Maybe they will. They used to be friends, after all.

When he leaves the diner, he looks in the mirror again and sees Justin sitting at the bar. When he turns around, it's just a girl with long, brown hair.

  


  


**knocked down, cried out**

JC looks out and sees Justin on the other side of the street.

He steps away from the window. Goes back to look. Justin is still there. He's standing in the pool of shadow under a tree.

JC walks slowly through the kitchen and the hall and stands behind the door for a while.

He opens it. Looks out. Justin stands where he stood before.

"Justin," JC says, too quiet for Justin to hear. Justin looks at him, or he _thinks_ Justin looks at him. He can't really see Justin's eyes, just the shadows painting fluttering black stripes on his face.

There's only about thirty yards of distance between them. Thirty warm, sun-drenched yards. He takes one step. The sun beats relentlessly. The sky screams blue-bright.

Justin stands in the shade and doesn't come closer. JC takes one more step, and that's it. This is the abyss. He reaches back and feels the door under his fingers. Strokes the solid, safe wood. Squints in the light, and lifts his hand to shade his eyes. He can feel his pulse picking up speed. He's starting to hyperventilate. Justin doesn't move.

JC lifts his hand and waves a little. A rock star wave, maybe. It feels very familiar. He feels his face wanting to form a smile. He lets it.

Justin waves back. JC can't see his eyes, but he does see that the hand is still missing a finger. So he didn't imagine that part. Why would Justin wave with his left hand? he wonders, and then he sees that Justin holds a ratty backpack in his right hand. He looks like he's going somewhere.

The world is darkening and starting to spin, and JC tightens his fingers on the door, squeezes viciously until the pain brings him back into his own body again. He has to get back inside.

When he's in the kitchen again, his breath slowing down, he looks out the window, and Justin is gone.

He calls Mrs. Harless and asks her over for coffee. They watch old NSync videos and laugh. He tells her about seeing Justin, and she cries a little, because Justin still hasn't called her. "He'll call," he says, patting her hand. "He's just sort of ... lost, I guess. He'll call."

  


  


**done if you are**

They're trying out a new song, and Chris has to admit that it may suck. He wonders if he should try to bury the hatchet with JC and hit him up for some new suicidal angst. Well, it wouldn't be impossible. He had a civilised conversation with Lance. Maybe JC's stopped being such a fucking crackhead.

"What the fuck, man?" Dave says fuzzily when Chris snorts to himself.

"Nothing," Chris says. "I'm going out for more beer. Please try to make this shit ... make sense. Any kind."

"You got it, dude," but really, it won't help. JC's crackheadedness would be just right for this. He writes nonsense with feeling. Dave is thirty-five and he can't fuel his rage quite to the point he wants anymore.

Chris gets beer from the gas station down the street. He tells himself that the clerk looks nothing like Justin, and shakes his head at himself. Who's a goddamn crackhead, anyway.

He ends up sitting in his car, parked in the gas station lot, for half an hour or so. He wonders if Lance has a point and he's hiding from life. He should know better.

He drives back to the house and when he opens his mouth to yell, "Beer in the hall!" he hears Beav say, serious over some muted chuckling, "How didja lose it anyway, Tim?" and Justin's voice answer, calmly,

"E flat, diminished ninth. My last chord."

Chris walks in to howling laughter. "Dude," Larry says, catching a six-pack deftly and cracking a can. "L'il Timmy here was just tellin' us about--"

"I heard," Chris says. Justin sits on the sofa between Larry and Beav. He's got a guitar in his lap, and his hair is tied back in a loose ponytail. When he grins, the scar on his cheek crinkles and pulls at his eye.

"Hey, Chris," he says. His voice sounds weird, like he's got a throatful of gravel, and Chris realises that he hasn't heard Justin speak out loud at all until now. The conversations they had that first night were almost subvocalised, muted under the shock of reunion.

"Hey, J--" and his brain backtracks faster than he thought it would capable of and he says, "--Tim. Hey, Tim. How's life?"

"Same old shit," Justin says, still loudly. He lifts the guitar and tries to form a chord with his almost-hand. Dave leans over him and they puzzle over how to work it. Chris stares, the second six-pack still in his hand. Absently, he tears off a can and opens it. Beer. More beer. This has got to be the wackiest hallucination yet.

"Won't work, man," Beav says.

"Damn, then I guess joining van Halen is off the To Do list," Justin mutters, and the guys laugh again. There's a new row of empty beer cans and bottles lining the wall.

They wrestle with the song some more. Justin sits quietly and drinks his beer, laughs at them from time to time. After a while, he starts looking like he belongs there, just another gawky kid in worn clothes. The scar doesn't make Chris flinch anymore. You can get used to anything, anything at all, he thinks.

Then Justin disappears bathroom-ways, and when he takes longer than Chris thinks is normal - whatever normal is on a day like this - Chris follows. And Justin is in the narrow hall between the living room and the kitchen, and he's leaning his forehead against the wall and breathing slow and deep breaths.

"Justin?" Chris says, quiet so the guys won't hear. Not that they will; Larry's murdering his drum solo, and the walls rattle along.

"I'm okay," Justin whispers, but he doesn't move. Chris touches his shoulder and feels a tremble run like a current through the tight muscle.

"Are you--" Chris rubs the shoulder slowly, and tries to figure out the right question. "Are you, um, tired?"

"I'm okay," stubbornly.

"Okay."

"Okay."

Justin lifts his head and blinks a few times, quick flutters of eyelash and lid, and Chris watches firsthand how the street face falls on and fits. He shouldn't be amazed; Justin was always good at showing game face.

He lets Justin go back to the living room by himself, slips into the bathroom and does some breathing of his own.

They work for a couple more hours but the song isn't being co-operative. Finally, Dave starts yawning so widely that the rest of them crack jokes about jaws out of joint. "Bailing," he says. Larry and Beav nod.

The three of them shuffle out in single file. Chris holds the door open for them like some damn butler. Dave leans in and whispers loudly, "Timmy's a cool kid, dude. Didn't know you knew him."

"He's a weirdo, though," Beav says conspiratorially. "We were starting to think he's stalking you."

"Me?" Chris says. It just falls out of him, surprise, what the fuck?

"Yeah, I don't know how long he's been skulking around. He's been at every gig since, dunno, March or something. April. We thought he had a crush on you or something, cause he was all shy about meeting you."

"Crush," Chris says.

"Yeah, man," Beav's almost out the door now, but he's leaning in and going on, "but I guess we just didn't catch on that you knew each other. You go back a ways, huh?"

"Way back," Chris says numbly.

  


Justin is still sitting on the sofa, but he's doesn't smile now. Chris supposes it's a good sign that he drops the act when they're alone. A sign of, say, trust. Maybe.

"I'm going to bed," he says out loud, and Justin starts and scrambles to his feet. He's eyeing the door like he's planning a speedy getaway, and Chris swallows and thinks that pride is overrated anyway, and grabs Justin's arm and says, "Stay. Please."

And, amazingly, it's the right thing, that was the right thing to say. Justin folds up around him, over him, arms around his neck, head heavy on his shoulder. It occurs to Chris that he never invited Justin to stay until now. Jesus. That easy?

Probably not, but for tonight, it's enough. Justin's quiet and lets himself be marched via bathroom to bedroom. They roll into bed and meet in the middle. Justin smells of beer and smoke and falls asleep on top of Chris like a man-sized teddy bear. Chris thinks, _beginning_ and feels a single cold shiver run on tiptoes down his spine.

  


When Justin isn't in the bed come morning, Chris discovers that he has somehow lost the ability to handle disappointment. He'd prepared himself, but damned if the knife isn't twisting in his chest anyway.

He makes himself get up and shuffle listlessly downstairs. The radio is playing in the kitchen. KC &amp; the fucking Sunshine Band are loudly declaring their intention to _do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight_.

Justin is sitting at the table by the window, haloed in midday sunlight. He's chewing on a sandwich. Chris wonders where the hell he found the makings of one. Hopes he won't have to drive Justin to the emergency with food poisoning. He knows the grin on his face is broad and ridiculous, and he's started bopping his head to the music.

"I got hungry," Justin says, and puts down the rest of his sandwich. "Your fridge is a morgue for murdered condiments, man," and then he sings along, "_do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight_," but his voice is different, really different.

"You sound like Bob Dylan," Chris says. Justin laughs, and he sounds different when he laughs like this, too, gravel-crackly and old.

"_How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man_," Justin sings, and laughs again.

"_How many seas must a white dove sail--_"

"_Before she sleeps in the sand--_" they finish together, and Chris steps into the bright spot of sunlight Justin occupies and lets it warm him.


End file.
